The closures shown and described are for use with containers for beverages, such as milk, other dairy products and juice. Containers that are blow-molded by bottlers of dairy and juice drinks closures have typically been used with simple threaded or push-on closures with flat integral lids. The closures require some form of tamper indicating feature, a popular version of which is the use of a foil liner placed on the interior of the closure. The foil liner is subsequently sealed against and connected to the neck of the container at an induction sealing station after the container is filled and after the closure is installed on the container.
Closures for bottled water (e.g., 28 mm diameter) have in recent years been supplied with a wide variety of flip top designs in which an easily openable and closeable lid is carried by a threaded closure base, and such flip-top features are popular. Flip top features, however, have not typically been included on larger diameter closures (e.g., 38 mm) of the kind used on blow-molded gallon, half-gallon and quart sized containers, perhaps because of cost concerns and/or the difficulty of designing a flip-top feature that will not cause problems when run through existing feeding equipment that is in place in bottling facilities. Some relatively large closures have been designed with integral hinges, known as a “butterfly” hinge, an example of which is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,588,546. Such hinges are a form of living hinge, and tend to break easily.
The closures described herein have a two-piece design that includes a flip top feature, and yet they are compatible with existing feeding equipment used in numerous dairies and other beverage bottling operations. The closures described herein also have the advantage to a closure supplier of allowing a single or standard color base component to be used with lids of different colors. This allows a closure supplier to quickly and efficiently respond to orders for closures, because instead of having to mold closures to fill an order for a particular colored closure, the supplier can simply assembly lids of a particular color lid to a standard base.